Taft High starts semester with a prayer

Campus Life says it was for the school not because of shooting anniversary

Taft High School started the fall semester off with a prayer.

The school's Campus Life Club sponsored a prayer not only for students but invited the public, too as well as local clergy.

The service was held during the TUHS lunch break.

Campus Life advisor Wes Morris said the group usually prays each Monday at noon inside the music building, but decided to hold a public one to kick off the New year and the Spring Semester.

The prayer came just four days before the anniversary of the shooting on the TUHS campus that left student Bowe Cleveland critically injured, but Morris and Campus Life's Clayton Wikoff said the prayer was not about that incident.

"We're really just pretty much praying for the school," Morris said. "We just wanted to start the new year off right."

"It's more for the start of the semester and not directly for the shooting," agreed Wikoff.

Wikoff's father, Rodney, pastor of the West Hills Church of the Nazarene, was one of the pastor's who attended and led prayers.Other's included Kay Sullivan, Morris, Bob Jordan, Scott Pearson of the First Baptist Church and Joey Pittman of New Hope Temple also led prayers.

There were no explicit references to the shooting during the prayers, and Sullivan referred to it only obliquely when she talked about attending a prayer held the day after the shooting.

About 50 people, including TUHS students, staff and administrators and members of the public, attended.

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